I almost skipped it myself, because boxing is something I have no use for. That's one of the reasons I liked Real Steel, I guess. Instead of people maiming each other for "sport", machines do it. That way the crowd can still yell and scream and vent their hostilities and kick ass vicariously...but nobody gets hurt. It is a funny movie, and kind of touching, in a way. It made ME feel good.

It surely does sound more humane than the way we do things now. What about football? Mechanized teams engaging in our favorite substitute for war...would that satisfy the human need to kick ass? I don't think that need can ever be bred out of us, but maybe it could be diverted.

There will probably always be those who'll never accept a substitute for hands-on mayhem. But the fact that we invented sports and games shows we needed an outlet for that kick-ass drive. I don't know if that's a weaning away from war or just a stop-gap measure until the real thing comes along.

Did anyone ever see The Talk of the Town (1942)? It's an incredibly silly movie, but I stuck with it right to the end because I got such a kick out of watching the three leads doing their thing -- Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman.

Sorry, Lorna, I overlooked this. But yes, really silly. Mostly the problem is that it couldn't make up its mind what kind of movie it wanted to be. It has a dark opening; a factory burns down and a man dies in the fire. Cary Grant is arrested and tried for arson and murder (but since he's Cary Grant, we know he didn't do it). During the trial, he attacks his guard and escapes.

Then for some strange reason we get a whole string of screwball comedy scenes. That's followed by scenes of pseudophilosophical discussions of law, freedom, and human rights. Next is the mystery of who really set the factory on fire, finally solved. Then the movie turns political, and Ronald Colman (a law professor, not practicing law and certainly not a judge) is appointed to the Supreme Court. It's all wrapped up in Washington, D.C., with a little romance thrown in at the end for extra flavoring.

If you're looking for something off the beaten path, try Half-Life. I went into that absolutely cold, having no idea of what to expect. And I suspect that's the best way to watch this movie. So, no review. But see it if you can.

In the category of Classics I've Always Been Ashamed To Admit I've Never Seen (but now I have, so I can admit it):

I finally caught up with Strangers on a Train. It's all that everyone says, and then some. Everyone talks about Robert Walker's performance, rightly, but even so, it surprised me. First, I thought I had seen him before but it turns out I hadn't (his other movies don't come up often). From descriptions of his role I had expected something obviously creepy, a Peter Lorre sort of persona, but this is much more interesting: someone who's physically a rugged All-American kind of guy, who is also insinuating, vaguely gay-flirty, and yes, creepy, but in an entirely original way I don't expect to see in something from that era. And then there's Farley Granger's soft passivity (perfectly used here): it's needed for the plot to work, so the character doesn't just brush the intrusive stranger off in the first minute and have nothing more to do with him, but it also interacts fascinatingly with what Walker is doing.

And of course there are the often-mentioned Hitchcock setpieces: the informal tennis match with one motionless set of eyes, the climactic match intercut with retrieving the lighter, the runaway carousel.